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Friday, September 25, 2015

Cluck Truck Adventures: Smoked Chicken

(This post, being written four weeks after the
happenings, is ancient in the world of blog posts and I was considering not
writing it at all. But then this
happened, “Alan, where did we eat that giant slimy fish?” And since it took us
at least 20 minutes to figure it out, I thought chronicling these trips, even
tardily, is good for the memory bank.)

As is our usual, a good two weeks prior to our return
from Orcas to Colorado, I had planned our complete trip: It consisted of some favorites (North
Cascades Highway in Washington, Fish Creek in Montana) with some soon to be
favorites (meeting up with my cousin, hiking in Grand Teton) and was to be our
longest return drive yet at six nights; providing us that one delicious
all-hiking-no-driving day. But just under two weeks before our departure, Alan, hearing
of the fires raging across eastern Washington, suggested that we should have a
Plan B.Little did we know that we
should have continued further down the alphabet.

The decision was made three days prior to our departure
when Washington State Highway 20 was still closed in many places (and all the
places we needed it) we set out on Plan B:
South by Southeast.

Days that start or end with a ferry ride don’t make for
good long driving days, so our first day was a short drive over Steven’s Pass
to the USFS Nason Creek Campground near Leavenworth. It was closed (despite not mentioning it on that website.) Apparently it has been closed for years. Luckily, adjacent to the closed campground
was Lake Wenatchee State Park. We found a nice pull through spot (no
unhooking!), put the chickens in their run and set off for a short walk along
the river.

This park, made up of two campgrounds, is quite lovely,
although clearly has room for a ton of campers.
But in the off season it was great; allowing for solitary and easy hikes
along the river and lake. (Most pitches
had water and electric and there is a dump station on site.)

Our first goal for Day Two was to not leave Washington
until we packed up a box of peaches. We
found a great little stand just off Highway 2 and gathered them in before heading
toward Orofino, Idaho. More and more, we
aim to travel less and less on the interstates; enjoying the American backroads
whenever possible. This usually makes
for longer days but almost always more interesting scenery and our route on Day
Two was no exception on either score. After a long driving day we pulled into McKay’s Bend, a BLM campground next to the
Clearwater River on Highway 12 in Idaho.
(Highway 12 is delightful; a definite new favorite.)

McKay’s Bend turned out to have about 15 sites, all
pull-through or back-in and looked more like a KOA (i.e., not more than 10’
between pitches) than any BLM sites we had ever seen. Even though we were hot and tired staying
there just wasn’t appealing (the last pitch available backed up to the
bathroom.) So we opted to continue down
Highway 12 to Pink House, another BLM site, about 20 minutes away. So glad we did! Lovely spot and we were one of three in the
campground. Pull-through, a full hook-up and right on
the river for $15/night.
Unbelievable. (We still didn’t
have to unhook Salt!) We halfheartedly attempted fishing (Clearwater River is quite large and we were equally unprepared for
casting that far out) before sitting back and enjoying a quiet evening.

Our goal for Day 3 was Pettengill Campground, outside of
Wise River, Montana on the Pioneer Mountains Scenic By-Way, but first we had to
make it off Highway 12, skirting multiple fires sometimes with smoldering logs
just barely off the road. What would
have been gorgeous scenery was almost unrecognizable in the smoke-filled haze. We gasped our way out of those fires and
headed southeast across the Bitterroot Natonal Forest.

As we dropped down toward the town of Wisdom,
Montana, we could see billowing clouds of smoke on the other side of the
valley, right where our campground was due to be. We stopped in Wisdom for some gas and
received timely information from the lady behind the counter: All the campgrounds along the north part of
the Pioneer Mountains Scenic By-Way were closed due to the fire--not that we were in any
danger of continuing on that path anyway.

Now, we hate to go backward on such a long drive, but after
much debate we did indeed opt to head back to May Creek Campground up in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest which we passed about 20 minutes prior. It turned out to be a nice little campground,
more full than usual with all the detours happening, but pitch #3 was
delightful and we set the Ladies to roam in their tent while we crossed the
street to fish.

After much bushwhacking we made it to the river and Alan
almost immediately pulled in a Brook Trout.
Although small, they are one of our favorites as their meat is very
sweet and tender. I was worried about the
Ladies so I returned to camp and let them free-range while I relaxed. In no time at all, Alan returned carrying two
fish; the original and another that was the biggest Brook Trout we had ever
seen. Was this going to be tasty!

Not.

Although campfires were (amazingly) allowed at May Creek
we opted not to light one as it just didn’t seem right when there were people
putting their lives at risk less than 50 miles away. So we fired up the oven, wrapped the trout in
foil and baked them with some butter and lemon.
Oh we were ready to open those packets up and dive in! And this, my friends, is when we ate the Giant
Slimy Fish.

We have never seen the likes of it, but the big Brook
Trout emitted a slime while cooking that was simply disgusting. I could not get past it to eat the flesh but
Alan did. Unfortunately, it didn’t get
any better; the flesh was tough and not flavorful at all. Ahh, old age gets the best of all of us.

So with our plans shot to hell for Day 4 (no going up and
around Wise River to join I-15 and cut down to West Yellowstone) we opted to
head south, pick up I-15 at a different spot and try a cut-off back road to get
to West Yellowstone. (I had two primary
objectives at this point: (1) Make it to
our reserved campsite at Wapati Campground on the outskirts of the Grand Teton
National Park and (2) do not stop in West Yellowstone, a town that is more
un-navigable when towing than many small European villages we had visited.) So off we went with a full lunch packed and
stopping for gas often to ensure we would not have to fill up in my least
favorite town.

We took the appropriate exit off I-15, turned left and came
to an abrupt stop. Dirt road. Dirt road for miles and miles and miles. Although disappointing, that was an easy
decision to make; miles of filling Salt with billowing dust was simply not
going to happen. So with me driving in a
general south/southeast pattern, Alan set about finding us yet another
detour. At this point, hiking in the
Grand Tetons was out of the question, as was making our reservation which,
being the Thursday and Friday before Labor Day Weekend was made to ensure us a
camping spot. We were now officially One
of Those People: The people who take off
on one of the busiest camping weekends in the country without reservations
anywhere.

But Alan’s patience (and ability to read maps and Google
without getting car-sick) found us a lovely drive: We crossed Idaho on Highway 26 which was
beautiful (and finally no smoke in the air!) and then turned up to Hoback
Junction locating Hoback Campground along the same-named river and finally
stopped moving.

Everyone except for JJ.

All the chickens were in their free range tent but JJ
just wouldn’t stop trying to get out. So
finally we let them all out for some real free-ranging. After a few minutes of dutiful pecking,
JJ jumped up into the back of the Shaker.
Alan brought over one of their travel cages, opened the door and in she
climbed. She spent a good hour making a
lovely nest but no hours actually laying an egg.

The other Ladies joined her at the normal bed time,
little did they know it would be awhile before they got out again: The morning dawned with ferocious winds, the
kind that, our experience has shown, knocks over free-range chicken tents and
sends the chickens running for the truck.
So we opted to leave them in their cages with me reaching in and
freshening the cages as best I could before hitting the road.

But Louise had a different idea: She thought she would enjoy some free range
time and, when I opened the top to clean out her cage, she jumped right out and
ran off.

We still had a lot of packing up to do so we just left
her alone. She didn’t move far from her
friends in the truck. But holy chicken
did they all talk about it! What were
they saying?

“I heard Louise, that skinny hen,
got out!”

“Where did she go?”

“No idea, but I imagine it wasn’t
to the donut shop.”

Yes, chickens can be catty.

Eventually we had to get Louise back in and potato chips
proved the best lure. We placed a chip
inside her cage and she willingly hopped into the Shaker, then on top of her
cage. At this point, I managed to grab
her and, let’s just say, encourage her to get inside. After such rude handling, she refused to
actually eat the chip until much later in the day.

At this point we were four nights on the road and 500
miles from home with no plans on the Friday before Labor Day Weekend. Two of Those People.

So we set out to see how far we could get. We knew of some boondocking sites south of
Walden, Colorado on Highway 125 and set our sights there, which would make it a
long drive day of over 400 miles. But
alas, what is one more change of plans at this point? Of course all the sites were taken so we just
kept going and going and eventually pulled into our driveway after every one of
those 500 miles were done.

I closed the gate and opened the back of the truck and
one by one the Ladies hopped out of their cages and ran freely in their yard; a
just reward for having spent 24 hours in their travel cages.

Well, everyone but Louise who took just a second to
polish off that chip.